[1] Since this monologue was spoken the old lady has received her pension. By the order of September 1911 twenty years of widowhood cleanse from alien pollution. "WIDOWS INDEED" Mrs. Woods had just returned from her search after work, worn and weary after a day of walking and waiting about on an empty stomach; the Educational Committee of Whitelime had informed her that they had decided to take no deserted wives as school-scrubbers, only widows need apply. Outside she heard the voices of her children at play in the fog and mist, and remembered with dull misery that she had neither food nor firing for them, and she shuddered as she heard the language on their youthful lips; she had been brought up in the godly ways of the North-country farmhouse and the struggle against evil seemed too hard for her. She fitted the key into the lock of her little bare room and lit the evil-smelling lamp, then she sank into a chair overpowered by deadly nausea; strange whirligigs of light flashed before her eyes, and then she collapsed on the floor in a dead faint. When she came to herself she was sitting by a bright little fire in the next room and friendly neighbours were chafing her hands and pouring a potent spirit down her throat. "That's right, my dear, you're coming round nicely; have another sip of gin and then a good cup of tea will put you right; faint you were, my dear, I know, and I suppose you had no luck at them Board Schools?" Mrs. Woods raised a weary hand to her dazed head and thought dully before she answered-- "They asked me if I was a widow, and when I said my husband had deserted me over a month ago they said as they were sorry they could not give me any work, they were keeping it for the widows of the Borough." "Yes, I 'eard that from Mrs. James, but why didn't you have the sense to say as you were a widow?" "I never thought on that. I am a truthful woman, I am." "Can't afford to be truthful if you are a deserted woman; men on boards and committees don't like the breed, thinks you did something to drive the old man away, but widows moves the 'ardest 'earts. What you wants is a crape fall and Mrs. Lee's black-bordered 'ankerchief." "You'll have to get work, my dear. All the pack will be loose on you soon--school-board visitors and sanitaries, and cruelty-men to say as your children have not enough food----" "There, there, don't upset her again; we'll fix you up all right, my dear, only you must remember, Mrs. Woods, that you are young and ignorant and must be guided by them as knows the world," said Mrs. Lee, a shrewd-eyed old dame of great wisdom and experience, who, like some of the curés in Brittany, was consulted by all her friends and neighbours in all problems spiritual and temporal.